"Bravo, Control, how copy?"
Lieutenant Typhe broke off from staring out into the rain and keyed his commlink. "Bravo here, loud and clear. What's up?"
"Bravo, Delta hasn't reported in the last hour, their locator stopped moving close to your patrol route and they aren't responding."
"Copy Control, we'll check on them. My gut says it's probably just interference from the storm." Typhe looked up at the darkened sky, rain drumming on his stormtrooper helmet. It never rained on Belladoon and yet the last three cycles had been nothing but continuous downpour. He sighed quietly then keyed the squad frequency on his commlink. "Sergeant, form up the patrol. Delta isn't answering comms, and we need to go babysit."
"Copy, El-Tee." There was a slight intake of breath and then "Bravo! You heard the Lieutenant, let's move with a purpose people!"
Two minutes later Typhe looked at the other seven stormtroopers of his patrol squad. Belladoon was an overly peaceful (some might say boring) backwater in the Outer Rim made up of ore miners and dirt farmers. Most days, the natives were content to work their shifts and then go to their hab units and sleep. As such, those in command saw no reason to deploy in more force than a token stormtrooper garrison to cover the more heavily populated areas. This stormtrooper platoon stationed in what passed for the largest 'city' on the planet was broken up into five patrol squads of eight troopers, which could be further broken into fireteams of four. As the ranking field officer, Typhe was in overall command outside of the HQ, but each squad was usually headed up by an NCO. Sergeant Delste looked at him as expectantly as his white helmet would allow.
"We move over to Delta's locator, I smack their noncom over the head, and we'll all be out of this kriffing rain by morning chow. Sound good?"
"Sounds good Sir!" the other seven replied.
The patrol squad moved quickly through the roads leading to Delta's last position, Delste and one of the junior troopers on point. Typhe's commlink chirped. "Bravo, Command." He held up a fist, bringing the squad to a halt.
"Bravo here, go ahead."
"Bravo, we had brief contact with Delta. We could hear them for second, but interference must've kept them from hearing us. Looks like your gut was correct."
"Copy, do you still want us to meet up?"
"A-firm, make contact with Delta lead, assist in troubleshooting comms. Over."
"Contact, troubleshoot, copy." Typhe shook his head and looked at Delste. "Alright, let's keep moving."
Delste nodded and the Lieutenant took point.
Once they got close to Delta's locator, Typhe called out on local comms, no response. He keyed into Sergeant Appallo's, Delta Lead, frequency. No response. He made eye contact with Delste, and they nodded to each other. Bravo split into their separate fireteams. The locator was in the middle of the covered back alleyways of the city, which held the shanty towns for those that couldn't afford or refused to live in the boxy pre-fabs that the Empire had provided. It also held the local black market and, because of which, the more unsavory portions of the native populace.
Typhe led his fireteam down the increasingly dark alleyways. Switching on the lowlight mode on his helmet, he could see that it was obvious something had broken the luminators. Shards of transparisteel crunched under his boots and, for reasons he couldn't pinpoint, a slight anxious feeling started to build in his stomach. His commlink chirped again, causing him to jump slightly. He looked at the troopers in his fireteam, but they stayed silent.
"Bravo-1, Bravo-2." Delste whenever they were in fireteams. "No sign of Delta but we found some blood. Correction, a lot of blood. No way anybody walked away after losing this much."
"Copy, head straight to Appallo's locator, we'll merge there."
"Cop-" The comms went silent.
"2? 2, come in! Delste!" Typhe said, the anxiety in his voice covered by his helmet mic. "Command, Bravo here, come in." the commlink gave a short burst of static and then completely died. To their credit, the fire team had taken up defensive positions without him having to say anything. Switching to hand signals, unsure if anyone else could hear, he pointed to two of his troopers and directed them to cover each side of the alley that would lead them to Delste and Appallo. He moved up, the final trooper guarding their rear.
As they moved more cautiously, blaster rifles trained at the dead end of the darkened alley, their boots made a soft splashing noise. Typhe looked down at their feet to see a large puddle of blood, almost black in the green glow of his helmet visor, mixing in with the dirt and dust. The other three troopers noticed as well, their body language showing the fear they were all suddenly feeling.
The alley way funneled the fire team into a large empty space when, without warning, one of the luminators came on, throwing the areas outside of its glow into darkness their visors couldn't penetrate, lighting up a scene out of the worst kind of horror holovids. There, hands pinned, crucified on the wall, lit up as if on display was Appallo. He had been decapitated, his white plastoid armor stripped from his torso, his head crammed into his stomach cavity. Typhe stared, not fully able to comprehend what he was seeing but noticing that Appallo's intestines were in a neat little pile under his hanging feet.
"De-uh-de-defensive positions." He stammered out to the fire team. Never in his years as a stormtrooper had he ever seen anything like this and, frankly, was unsure what to do. The other troopers moved to cover each other, one of them dropping and kneeling into the blood and viscera. He looked down, realizing what was touching his kneepad, stood up ripped his helmet off, and vomited loudly into the corner. The trooper began wiping his chin when he was yanked upwards with a yelp. There was a squelch and the trooper fell, cut in half, with a wet slap.
Typhe and the two remaining troopers turned the luminators on their blaster rifles on and pointed into the dark that the body had fallen from. There hanging from the overhead a midnight clad monster stared back at them, red eyes glowing like fire. It moved faster than they could track and suddenly was gone. The fire team closed ranks, standing back-to-back, covering as much of the space they were in as they could with their blasters.
Typhe saw a slight movement in the darkness ahead of him. He snapped his blaster up, aiming into the dark when something soft rolled out and collided with his leg. He glanced down to see Delste's head staring up at him, eyes and tongue removed, mouth open in a silent scream. He looked back into dark corner, finger tightening on the trigger. A massive, armored hand, the same color as the monster, snatched the barrel of his rifle and effortlessly crushed it, rendering it useless. At the same time, two bright red eyes lit up in the dark and a soft sliding metal sound could be heard. There was a blur of moving metal as Typhe felt burning pain in his forearms. Faster than his eyes could follow this new monster had severed his arms from the elbow down. With twin spurts of bright red blood, he fell onto his back.
The two remaining troopers, losing what little nerve they had left, ran. More monsters materialized out of the shadows of the alley. Typhe noticed through his pain and shock their large, armored, humanoid forms, midnight blue, lightning designs running down their bodies. Helmets with faceplates that looked like skulls or, more appropriately, the personification of death. Curiously, some had red batwings protruding from their helmets.
Typhe also noticed that the other two troopers had not made it far, he couldn't see what was happening from his position, but the screaming and wet noises told him enough.
The monster that had taken his arms stepped out of the shadows, batwings catching the light. It looked down at him, then stepped on his right shin, crushing it as easily as cardboard. Typhe cried out, not believing that he could feel more pain. The monster crouched down, staring at him the whole time. It chuckled, the sound like rusty metal grates moving. It held up a hand, massive, bladed claws on its armored fingertips. It pointed up and then brought the claw point into his stomach, chuckling the entire time. Holding the point there it moved its head closer to his, and in a voice that sounded like a death whisper, which was at odds with its massive size it spoke. The language wasn't Basic but strangely, Typhe could understand it. It said, as it slowly drove the claw point through his plastoid armor and into his stomach, "Weep little one, weep for we have come for you."